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Air Fryer Mince Pies With Homemade Mincemeat Recipe

Name: Air Fryer Mince Pies With Homemade Mincemeat Recipe
Prep time: 45 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 60 min
Yield: 12 servings
Ingredients: 100g (3/4 cup) Raisins; 100g (3/4 cup) Sultanas (golden raisins); 80g (1/2 cup) Dried cranberries; 80g (1/2 cup) Currants; 60g (1/4 cup) Mixed candied citrus peel, roughly chopped; 1 large Bramley or Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored, and finely grated; 100g (1/2 cup) Dark brown sugar, packed; 80g (1/3 cup) Vegetable suet or cold unsalted butter, grated frozen; Zest of 1 Orange, finely grated; Zest of 1 Lemon, finely grated; 1.5 tsp Mixed spice (British spice blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, clove, coriander); 1/2 tsp Ground cinnamon; 1/4 tsp Freshly grated nutmeg; 4 tbsp Brandy or dark rum (or apple juice for alcohol-free version); 1 tbsp Fresh orange juice; 250g (2 cups) Plain all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling; 125g (1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp) Cold unsalted butter, cubed; 50g (1/3 cup) Icing sugar (powdered sugar), sifted; 1 large Egg yolk, cold; 2 to 3 tbsp Ice cold water, added one tablespoon at a time; Pinch Fine sea salt; 1 Egg, beaten with 1 tbsp milk for egg wash; 2 tbsp Icing sugar, for dusting after baking; 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract, added to egg wash for a richer glaze(Optional)

Total 1h

Prep 45m

Cook 15m

Serves 12

Level medium

AI Flavor Insights

Air fryer mince pies bake in 12 to 15 minutes at 180 degrees C in a preheated air fryer, giving a crisp, golden base.
Homemade mincemeat combines dried fruit, citrus zest, spices, suet or butter, and brandy or rum, and improves after a week in the fridge.
Sweet shortcrust pastry must stay cold through mixing and rolling, or it turns dense and shrinks.

Air fryer mince pies with homemade mincemeat bake in 12 to 15 minutes at 180 degrees C, after 45 minutes of prep plus pastry chilling and overnight mincemeat resting. The recipe makes 12 pies with spiced dried fruit mincemeat for Christmas.

Mince pies made in an air fryer come out with a deeper golden crust, a crispier base, and a more evenly browned pastry than most home ovens manage in a standard bake. The circulating hot air hits every surface simultaneously, which means the pastry browns from all sides at once rather than just from below. For a small batch baked in 12 to 15 minutes, it’s the most efficient method going.

What are mince pies?

They’re small British festive pastries filled with a spiced fruit and suet mixture called mincemeat, enclosed in shortcrust or sweet shortcrust pastry and baked until golden. The name is a relic of the medieval period when actual minced meat was mixed with dried fruit, spices, and fat as a preservation method. By the Victorian era, the meat had largely disappeared and mincemeat became what it is today: a deeply spiced mixture of dried fruit, citrus zest, sugar, suet or butter, and alcohol, typically brandy or rum.

What is homemade mincemeat and why is it better than jarred?

Homemade mincemeat uses real ingredients in ratios you control: dried cranberries, currants, raisins, sultanas, candied orange peel, apple, suet or cold butter, brown sugar, mixed spice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and brandy or rum. The flavour is brighter, fresher, and more complex than most commercial jars, which tend to be very sweet, heavily syruped, and short on citrus and spice character. Homemade mincemeat also matures over time. Made a week ahead and left in a sealed jar in the fridge, it develops a deeper, more integrated flavour as the fruit absorbs the alcohol and the spices meld together.

What pastry works best for air fryer mince pies?

Sweet shortcrust pastry is the traditional choice. It’s more tender and slightly richer than plain shortcrust, with a fine, crumbly texture from the addition of icing sugar and an egg yolk. It holds its shape when cut, doesn’t shrink as dramatically as plain shortcrust during baking, and the slight sweetness balances the intensely spiced, sweet mincemeat filling without competing with it. Ready-made all-butter shortcrust pastry from the supermarket works as a shortcut and produces genuinely good results in the air fryer.

Why does the air fryer work particularly well for mince pies?

The cavities in a standard muffin tin create a protected pocket of air underneath the pastry base that prevents direct heat from reaching it in a conventional oven. The base often stays pale while the top over-browns. An air fryer’s circulating heat gets under the pastry base far more effectively than a standard oven shelf, producing the crisp, golden base that mince pie pastry needs.

Ingredients

24 Items

Instructions

7 Steps

Make the mincemeat (up to 2 weeks ahead)

Combine the raisins, sultanas, dried cranberries, currants, candied peel, grated apple, dark brown sugar, suet or frozen grated butter, orange zest, lemon zest, mixed spice, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a large bowl. Stir thoroughly until every ingredient is evenly distributed. Add the brandy and orange juice and stir again. The mixture should smell intensely spiced and look dark, glossy, and moist. Cover the bowl tightly with cling film and leave at room temperature overnight, stirring once more in the morning. The dried fruit absorbs the alcohol and the flavours begin to meld. Transfer to sterilised jars, seal tightly, and refrigerate. Use within 2 weeks. The longer it matures, the better it tastes. A week-old mincemeat is noticeably more complex than a same-day batch. Any mincemeat left over after filling the pies keeps in the sealed jars under the same storage guidance.

Make the sweet shortcrust pastry

Add the cold cubed butter to the flour and salt in a large bowl or food processor. Rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips, working quickly so the butter stays cold, until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs with a few pea-sized butter pieces remaining. Those pieces create flaky layers in the finished pastry. Add the sifted icing sugar and mix through. Add the cold egg yolk and 2 tablespoons of ice water. Mix with a butter knife or pulse briefly until the dough just comes together. Add the third tablespoon of water only if the dough looks dry and crumbly. The dough should hold together when pressed but not be sticky or wet. Overworked pastry develops gluten and shrinks dramatically during baking. Mix only until it comes together, no more. Flatten into a disc, wrap in cling film, and refrigerate for 30 minutes minimum.

Roll and cut the pastry

Lightly flour a cool work surface. Remove the chilled pastry and roll to about 3mm thickness. Use a round cutter slightly larger than the cavities of a silicone muffin mould or individual pie tins that fit your air fryer basket. Cut bases first. Cut star shapes, smaller rounds, or decorative tops for the lids. If the pastry warms and becomes soft and sticky during cutting, slide it onto a baking sheet and refrigerate for 10 minutes before continuing. Cold pastry going into a hot air fryer holds its shape dramatically better than warm pastry.

Line the moulds and fill

Press the larger pastry rounds gently into the lightly greased silicone muffin moulds, pushing down into the base and sides without stretching. Stretched pastry springs back and shrinks during baking, pulling up the sides and leaving a shallow, insufficient cup. Spoon 1 to 1.5 teaspoons of mincemeat into each of the 12 lined moulds. Don't overfill. Mincemeat bubbles and expands as it heats and an overfilled pie bursts and leaks through the edges of the lid. Place the pastry lids on top and press the edges gently together with your fingertips to seal. Make a small steam hole in each lid with a skewer or the tip of a small knife.

Egg wash and preheat

Brush each pie with the beaten egg and milk mixture, with the vanilla if using, using a pastry brush. Apply a thin, even coat. Too much egg wash pools in the steam hole and around the edges and produces a patchy, uneven glaze. Preheat the air fryer to 180 degrees C for 3 minutes. Preheating is essential for mince pies specifically. An unpreheated air fryer starts cooking the pies slowly and the pastry base softens before the circulating heat builds to the temperature needed for crisping.

Air fry the mince pies

Place the silicone mould in the air fryer basket. Don't stack or overlap. Air fry at 180 degrees C for 12 to 15 minutes until the pastry is deeply golden on top and the edges look dry and biscuit-brown. Check at 12 minutes. Air fryers vary in their actual output temperature so start checking early on the first batch. The mincemeat inside will be bubbling slightly through the steam hole when they're done. Remove carefully. The mincemeat stays very hot for several minutes after baking.

Cool and finish

Leave the mince pies in the mould for 5 minutes after baking before attempting to remove them. The pastry firms up as it cools and is too fragile to handle safely straight from the air fryer. After 5 minutes, carefully lift each pie out and place on a wire rack to cool. Dust generously with icing sugar while still warm. Serve warm or at room temperature. Warm mince pies with a spoonful of brandy butter or clotted cream on the side is the correct combination.

Nutrition Facts

Per Serving

398.2kcal Calories approx.

protein 8%

3.8g

sodium 1%

32.6mg

cholesterol 25%

75.1mg

Vitamin D 1%

0.2mcg

Calcium 3%

29.6mg

Iron 8%

1.4mg

Potassium 5%

217.9mg

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.

What every cook needs to know about air fryer mince pies

Why does the pastry need to stay cold throughout the whole process?

Butter is the fat that creates the tender, crumbly, short texture of shortcrust pastry. It needs to stay in discrete solid pieces throughout the mixing and rolling process. When those pieces hit the heat of the air fryer, they melt and release steam, creating tiny pockets in the pastry that produce a light, crumbly, layered texture. If the butter melts during mixing or rolling because the pastry warmed up, those pockets collapse before they can form. The result is dense, tough, shrinkage-prone pastry that tastes more like biscuit than short pastry. Work fast, keep everything cold, and refrigerate any time the dough feels soft or greasy.

What is mixed spice and can you make it yourself?

Mixed spice is a British pre-ground spice blend used in Christmas baking. The standard blend is cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, clove, ground coriander seed, and sometimes ginger. If unavailable outside the UK, make it: combine 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon allspice, 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg, 1/4 teaspoon ground clove, and 1/4 teaspoon ground coriander. This gives you approximately 2 teaspoons of mixed spice, which is the right quantity for this mincemeat recipe. Pumpkin pie spice is the closest American commercial substitute but is sweeter and less complex.

Can you use ready-made pastry?

Yes, and it works very well in the air fryer. All-butter shortcrust pastry from the supermarket, sold in pre-rolled sheets in the UK, produces excellent mince pies with noticeably less effort. Remove it from the fridge 10 minutes before use, keep it on its packaging while rolling to prevent sticking, and use immediately without resting. The pre-made version won’t have quite the tenderness of a homemade sweet shortcrust but it’s a genuinely good result for a fraction of the time.

How far ahead can you make mince pies?

Baked mince pies keep well in an airtight tin at room temperature for up to 5 days. Warm briefly in the air fryer at 160 degrees C for 3 to 4 minutes before serving to restore the crisp pastry. Unbaked assembled pies freeze beautifully for up to 3 months. Freeze them in the moulds until solid, then transfer to a freezer bag. Bake from frozen in the preheated air fryer at 180 degrees C for 18 to 20 minutes, adding about 5 minutes to the standard time. Dust with icing sugar after baking as normal.

What is suet and can you substitute it?

Suet is hard white fat from around the kidneys of beef or mutton, sold shredded in boxes in the UK and used in traditional mincemeat and steamed puddings. It has a higher melting point than butter, which means it stays solid during the mixing stage and only melts during baking, producing a richer, more moisture-retaining mincemeat. Outside the UK, vegetable suet is widely available and vegan. Cold butter grated frozen on a box grater is the most accessible substitute and produces excellent mincemeat. The texture of the finished filling is slightly less glossy than suet-based mincemeat but the flavour difference is negligible.

For another British Christmas bake, see our Easy Christmas Cake Recipe. For festive travel ideas, see our Best Christmas Markets UK. For a lighter festive dessert, try Mango Sticky Rice Recipe (Khao Niao Mamuang).

Yes, and the air fryer produces a better result than many conventional ovens for mince pies specifically. The circulating hot air reaches the base of the pastry more effectively than a standard oven shelf, producing a crisp, golden base that conventional muffin tin baking often fails to achieve. Bake at 180 degrees C for 12 to 15 minutes in a preheated air fryer using silicone muffin moulds that fit the basket.

Mincemeat in modern mince pies is a preserved mixture of dried fruits including raisins, sultanas, currants, and cranberries, combined with apple, suet or butter, brown sugar, citrus zest, warming spices, and alcohol, typically brandy or rum. Despite the name, it contains no meat. The name is a historical relic from the medieval period when minced meat was mixed with sweet spices and dried fruit as a preservation method. By the Victorian era the meat had been phased out entirely.

Homemade mincemeat keeps refrigerated in sealed sterilised jars for up to 2 weeks. The alcohol acts as a preservative and the flavour improves significantly over the first week as the dried fruit absorbs the brandy and the spices meld together. For longer storage, mincemeat can be frozen for up to 6 months. Thaw overnight in the fridge before using. Commercial jarred mincemeat unopened keeps for up to a year and once opened keeps refrigerated for 4 to 6 weeks.

For standard silicone muffin moulds, use a 7 to 8cm round cutter for the base and a 6cm round or star cutter for the lid. The base needs to be slightly larger to line the cavity properly with a small overhang to press the lid against. If your mould is shallower or deeper than standard, adjust the base cutter size accordingly. The lid can be any shape: round, star, Christmas tree, or snowflake. Decorative lids look better than plain rounds at the table.

Yes. Replace the brandy or rum with fresh apple juice or orange juice at the same quantity. The mincemeat will be slightly less preserved and should be used within 5 days rather than 2 weeks. The flavour is lighter and less complex without the alcohol but still very good. Add an extra half teaspoon of mixed spice to compensate for the depth the alcohol would have added.

Puffing usually means the steam hole wasn't made or was too small, allowing internal pressure from the hot mincemeat to lift the lid. Always pierce each lid with a skewer before baking. Cracking typically means the pastry was too dry when rolled, either from too little water in the mix or from drying out in the fridge without being wrapped. Wrap the pastry disc tightly in cling film before resting, and if cracks appear when rolling, press them together with wet fingers and let the pastry rest another 5 minutes before continuing.

Recipe By

Elena Marchetti

Elena Marchetti is a recipe editor at RoamFeast, developing and editing recipes from around the world for home cooks. She focuses on accurate quantities, clear step-by-step methods and dishes that work in a normal home kitchen, with details checked before publication.